Class 7: The Protestant Ethic

A. One Pilgrim’s Progress

1. Title Slide 1 (Henry Melville: Illustration to The Pilgrim’s Progress, 1835)

One day last semester, when I announced this course and explained its personal importance to me, Paul joked that this would not be a course but an intervention! I have stayed away from the over-personal on the whole, but my preparation for this class has taken me back so strongly that I am going to indulge those memories, at least for the first few minutes. The class was advertised as The Protestant Reformation, starting with Martin Luther, and we will indeed go back to him. I shall focus on one aspect of his legacy in particular: Protestant Humanism, Protestant Populism, or simply the Protestant Ethic.

2. Michael Brunyate: The Land of Adventure, first sketch for a game board

You probably see me as a sophisticate, at home with Raphael and Rubens, Stravinsky and Schoenberg. Yet I had barely seen any masterpieces of world art by the time I signed up for an Art History degree at Cambridge. This was the art I grew up with, drawn by my own father. He was not an artist but an engineer, trained to use a parallel rule and drafting pen. Yet he got it into his head to make a board game based on The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, play it with me as an ongoing moral lesson, and possibly market it as a kind of Christian Monopoly. Well, he didn’t get very far before the board was larger than our dining-room table; this is just a sketch for one corner of it. Before long, he had turned his ideas into a slide show, which he toured Northern Ireland presenting in churches. And then, rather than talking himself, he wrote an hour-long radio play which we all recorded—family, friends, and neighbors—then added music and played it along with the slides. But first, let’s look back at the original.

3. Bunyan: The Pilgrim’s Progress, title page, with portraits of the author

John Bunyan (1628–88) was a tinker’s son from near Bedford in Eastern England; he took up his father’s trade, and followed his somewhat conventional religious views. However, meeting by chance with some Puritans, he was converted to their cause, becoming a lay preacher and a prolific writer. Conditions in Commonwealth England after the Civil War made such activities possible. But he refused to stop preaching when Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, and was thrown into jail for twelve years. It was there that he began work on The Pilgrim’s Progress.

4. The Pilgrim’s Progress map, 1813

In a great tradition dating back to Piers Plowman at least, Bunyan tells his story “under the similitude of a dream.” In it, the pilgrim, whose name is Christian, leaves the City of Destruction and, after surmounting many challenges to his faith, crosses the River of Death to arrive at the Celestial City. My father was not to know, but there are several existing maps of The Pilgrim’s Progress, and it would not be hard to adapt the early 19th-century one seen here into a kind of Chutes and Ladders. But his aim

— 1 — was not to create a work of art, so much as to use art first to develop his own thoughts, and then as a teaching tool for others; he was diagramming rather than drawing. Bunyan was also such a teacher.

5. Map detail, with Vanity Fair 6. Michael Brunyate: Attractions in Vanity Fair

My father was also concerned to reinterpret the story in terms of the world of the 1950s, though it now seems hopelessly dated. Here is the Vanity Fair section from the 1813 map (note the Pope in the Cave of Darkness reserved for the Pagans!), and here is one of my father’s scenes from the fair: Tongue- Waggers’ Hall and the Maze of Indulgence. Further to the right in the original was a roller-coaster that never returned to base, called “The Ride of Thrills to the Barren Hills.” It was from lessons like these that—for good or ill—I was taught the creed of self-denial.

7. Map detail (1813), with the Hill Difficulty 8. Michael Brunyate: The Hill Difficulty

Or look at the map version of Hill Difficulty together with my father’s version. Amateur though he was, I think this is one of the best of his drawings, not only for its grandeur and scale, but also for its theology. If you look at the signpost at the bottom, the creed of self-denial is right there in force. But it is interesting that he also condemns “Goodness” as a short-cut. As you go up the hill, you will see the churches—presumably the prime purveyor of goodness—either abandoned or propped up by flimsy scaffolding. This Protestantism virtually discards the established church in favor of individual responsibility. [Incidentally, my father used to take me mountain climbing from an early age. I suspect that those expeditions, which I very much enjoyed, served the role of moral education too!]

9. Michael Brunyate: The Valley of the Shadow and The Celestial City

This is a moral rather than a sacred art; didactic rather than devotional, it places teaching over transcendence. Yet there are times when you need to transcend. Sensing this, my father experimented with oil painting for his climactic slides. With the Hallelujah Chorus ringing out too, they got applause after so much black and white. But they are not adequate as pictures. For that, you need a Rubens.

Bunyan summed up the spirit of his book in the well-known hymn “To be a Pilgrim,” most often sung to the traditional melody adapted by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958). This is a performance by Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band. The illustrations are by a contemporary artist, Mike Wimmer, albeit painting in the style of at least a century earlier.

10. Bunyan/Vaughan Williams: “To be a Pilgrim”

— 2 —

B. Three Artists of the Reformation

11. Cranach: Martin Luther (1532, Dresden), with bullet points

So how did this shift from devotional to didactic art come about? It all began with Martin Luther (1483– 1546). I have listed a few bullet points about him on the slide: • He was ordained a priest in 1507, and immediately began his work as a scholar, preacher, and writer. • In 1517, he published the Ninety-five Theses Against Indulgence (the practice of selling spiritual “get out of jail free” cards to raise money for the Church). • In 1521, he was excommunicated. • He wrote that Salvation is the free gift of God, obtainable only through faith, not by deeds or indulgence. • He wrote that the Bible is the only absolute authority, not the Church, not the Pope. • He considered that every baptized Christian is a member of a holy priesthood. • He translated the Bible into German (though he was not the first to do so), making it accessible to every educated German. • He wrote numerous hymns, some of which we will examine later. • While he opposed the use of images as objects of devotion, he saw the value of art as a means of instruction. Unfortunately. I also have to say that Luther was intolerant of most other religions, not just Roman Catholicism, but some other Protestant sects and especially Judaism.

12. Luther Bible: first chapter of Revelation, with tinted woodcut by Lucas Cranach

Look at this slide. It is an opening from what is obviously a deluxe printing of the Luther Bible, with hand-colored woodcut illustrations. I think this is by Lucas Cranach (1472–1553), but am not sure. Unlike the fiercely iconoclastic Calvanists, Luther not merely tolerated art, but encouraged it as an educational tool. And with a subject as obscure as the Revelation, illustrations would certainly be helpful.

13. Cranach: Martin Luther (1532, Dresden), with Dürer, Cranach, and Grünewald

The Lutheran Church does not worship saints, but it does commemorate certain people on given days of the year. Three German artists share April 6, all contemporaries of Luther himself: Matthias Grünewald (c.1475–1528). Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), and Lucas Cranach (1472–1553). Cranach, as we have seen, was a friend of Luther’s, his frequent portraitist, and illustrator of his Bible; we shall see more of his work in a moment. Dürer never left the Catholic Church and never met Luther, although he wished to do so; his later work is Protestant in all but name. Grünewald apparently left at his death a number of Luther’s sermons, and his translation of the New Testament, which the auctioneers discarded as “Lutheran trash.” But his surviving paintings make him, at first glance, an unlikely candidate for Lutheran veneration. What could be more Catholic than these panels from his Isenheim (1512–15)?

— 3 —

14. Grünewald: Isenheim Altarpiece: , Angel Concert, Madonna, Resurrection 15. Grünewald: Isenheim Altarpiece (1512–15, ): Crucifixion

This is the second opening of a complex altarpiece with multiple sets of folding wings. The four panels are, from left to right: Annunciation, Angel Concert, Madonna and Child, and Resurrection. Three of these are from the Life of the Virgin, and fit in well with Catholic Marian devotion. Yet they are also unique in their color, their intensity, their sense of movement. These are not paintings you sit back and contemplate; rather, they reach out and grab the beholder by the eyeballs. And even more so the Crucifixion that forms the centerpiece of the first opening. There is no danger of anybody worshiping this as an icon. Rather it is a depiction of a scene of torture in the most gruesome manner possible. If Luther valued art for its instructional value, you can see how he might have approved of this.

16. Dürer: Samson and the Lion (1498) and Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513) 17. Dürer: Philipp Melancthon and Erasmus of Rotterdam (both 1526)

The case of Albrecht Dürer is interesting, because he was a more varied and prolific artist. He was a prodigious maker of prints, whether Bible stories such as this early woodcut of Samson and the Lion or moral allegories such as his Knight, Death, and the Devil of 1513. Again, this is art for instruction; Luther would have approved. And Dürer was certainly aware of the Wittenberg theologian. Shortly after Luther published his Ninety-five Theses, Dürer sent him a gift in admiration. In 1520 he wrote “"And God help me that I may go to Dr. Martin Luther; thus I intend to make a portrait of him with great care and engrave him on a copper plate to create a lasting memorial of the Christian man who helped me overcome so many difficulties." He never made that connection, so far as is known, but he did engrave Philipp Melanchton, Luther’s close associate, and his rival scholar and reformer Erasmus. [The Latin text in the Melancthon engraving reads: “Dürer was able to depict the features of the living Philip, but the skilled hand could not portray his mind.” The text of the Erasmus engraving is “This image of Erasmus of Rotterdam was drawn from life by Albrecht Dürer. The better portrait will his writings show.” The last phrase is in Greek.]

18. Dürer: Saint in his Study (1514) 19. Antonello da Messina: Saint Jerome in his Study (1470s, London NG)

The image of a scholar writing leads me on to this remarkable engraving of 1514, Saint Jerome in his Study. What do you make of it? First of all, the subject. Saint Jerome (347–420) was a 4th-century hermit and scholar who translated the Bible into Latin, his edition known as the , because Latin was then the vernacular language. You could thus read the picture as a symbolic reference to Luther, who was making his own vernacular translation. Secondly, the setting. Much like an Italian renaissance artist, Dürer is obviously showing off his grasp of perspective; look even at how he signs the picture! But this does not make an abstract space like, say, Piero della Francesca, but an extremely detailed German bourgeois interior. Actually, the subject is one that had been around for the better part of a century. Look at this version by the Sicilian artist (albeit strongly influenced by Netherlandish painting) Antonello da Messina (c.1430–79). Let’s compare them.

— 4 —

20. Dürer: Saint Jerome (1521, Lisbon) 21. Dürer: Old Man Aged 93 (1521, Vienna Albertina)

Dürer did a second version of Saint Jerome in 1521, this time in paint. At first sight, it is a disappointment, lacking the balanced complexity of the print and seeming too obvious. But then look at that face—and look at the preparatory drawing Dürer made for it, called simply Old Man Aged 93. A work like this takes the –ism away from Humanism, making it simply human.

22. Cranach: Cardinal Albrecht as St Jerome (1525, Darmstadt)

Lucas Cranach certainly knew Dürer, or at least his prints. His 1525 painting of Saint Jerome, in which he gives the saint the features of the Cardinal whom he was serving at the time, is clearly based on Dürer’s engraving, reversed. It is nothing like so strong as a work of art. Cranach was an uneven artist who managed a vast output by using a large workshop of apprentices. Stylistically, his roots were still in the Gothic tradition. But he was the only one of the three to reject the Catholic Church and join Luther. Indeed, he knew Luther well and became his friend, illustrating his writings, and painting numerous portraits of him, even on his deathbed.

23. Lucas Cranach, Elder and Younger: Herderkirche Altarpiece (1555, Weimar)

Can you see what is going on here? Again, it is as much a diagram as a painting. There are two depictions of Christ: on the cross, and defeating Death and the Devil. Saint introduces two contemporary figures. One is Cranach himself, who is baptized by a spout of Christ’s blood. The other is his friend Luther, whose writings opened his spiritual eyes.

24. Cranach: Law and Gospel (1536, p.c.)

Here is an even more didactic painting, with its meaning spelled out in the text labels. On the right, you have much the same elements as in the Herderdirche Altarpiece: Christ conquering Sin and Death, and John the Baptist pointing out that all you have to do is believe. On the left, though, is what happens if you blindly follow the rules of the Catholic Church without seeking out your own faith in the Gospel: you go to Hell. Luther was by no means an ecumenical preacher; my daughter, who went to Lutheran High School here in Baltimore, says they are still taught that more or less all non-Lutherans are damned.

25. Cranach: Wittenberg Altarpiece (1547, Marienkirche, Wittenberg) 26. Cranach: The Last Supper from the Wittenberg Altarpiece (1547)

Here is one more large altarpiece by Cranach, in Luther’s own church in Wittenberg. The wings show Philipp Melcanthon baptizing on the left, and a local minister on the right. The predella at the bottom shows Luther preaching. In the center is the Last Supper, with the disciples replaced by contemporary Lutheran figures; not all of them have been identified, but the disciple taking the cup is Luther himself, and the person serving him is probably Cranach himself.

— 5 —

C. Ein Feste Burg

27. Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, text and Luther’s chorale

Luther not only translated the Bible into German prose, he made verse translations of many of its passages that could be sung by the entire congregation as hymns, and composed the melodies to go with each. Here is one of the most famous, his adaptation of Psalm 46, “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” (A mighty fortress is our God). His theme was harmonized by J. S. Bach in several different versions. Many other composers have used it as the basis for other works, among them the Reformation Symphony by Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47) and the opera Les Huguenots by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864). I will round off the hour with three musical clips. First, the chorale tune itself, sung in Luther’s rhythm, not the more four-square version we are accustomed to today.

28. Luther: Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, first verse

Then part of the organ prelude by Michael Praetorius (1572–1621), played in Bach’s church in Leipzig by an organist who shows no facial expression whatsoever!

29. Praetorius portrait 30. Praetorius: Organ prelude on Ein feste Burg (excerpt)

And finally, a modern piece for brass and percussion by the contemporary composer Ray Farr, who sets the solemn chorale against brilliant fanfares that are themselves fragmentations of the theme.

31. Ray Farr portrait 32. Ray Farr: Intrada, Ein feste Burg 33. Title slide 2 (Luther statue at Lake Montebello, and Luther at the Diet of Worms)

D. The World of Pieter Bruegel

34. Maes: Old Woman Saying Grace (c.1656, Rijksmuseum) Rockwell: Saying Grace (1951)

Let’s compare these two paintings called Saying Grace. One is Dutch, by Nicolaes Maes (1634–93), the other by the American Norman Rockwell (1894–1978). The subject is a religious one, but does that make them religious paintings? Or are they merely social observation—genre painting? One is in a great museum (the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam); does the other deserve equal prominence? Certainly, I would not call either of these sacred art; neither is in the least transcendent. But moral art, art with a moral perspective, certainly. For the next half hour, I want to explore this borderline area, first with reference to a single painter in 16th-century Flanders, Pieter Bruegel (1525–69), and then to move north into the Netherlands of the 17th century with a few other artists of the Dutch Golden Age.

— 6 —

35. Bruegel: The Census at Bethlehem (1566, Brussels) 36. Bruegel: The Massacre of the Innocents (1566, Vienna)

This painting of The Census at Bethlehem is characteristic of Bruegel’s tendency to set Biblical, mythological, or historical events among the people of his own time—in this case, a winter in the “Little Ice Age,” with some of the coldest temperatures on record. It seems a mildly humorous scene from village life, but you can also see resentment against the procedures imposed by the occupying power. The Low Countries were under Spanish occupation; the brutal actions taken by the Duke of Alva to suppress Calvinism would shortly bring the country to the brink of revolt and the Eighty Years War. Even more so in its sequel, The Massacre of the Innocents. [This is actually a copy by Bruegel’s son, since the father was made to paint out all the images of slaughtered children.]

37. Bruegel: The Tower of Babel (c.1563, Vienna)

Here is a subject from the Hebrew Bible, The Tower of Babel. It may contain a different kind of commentary. Bruegel had visited Rome, and his tower is suspiciously like a twisted version of the Colosseum. Which makes it in turn a critique of the massive but crumbling arrogance of the Catholic Church—but also, quite possibly, of the many different sects of polyglot Protestantism that had spring up to oppose it. Once start looking for symbols in Bruegel—or pretty much any Netherlandish painter— and there is no knowing where to stop.

38. Bruegel: Peasant Wedding (1567, Vienna)

Or try this, the Peasant Wedding, now in Vienna. It can be taken on several levels. The simple one: it is just a depiction of peasants having a good time. Or the Biblical one: it is an update on the story of the Marriage at Cana—though where is the Christ figure turning the water into wine? Or the symbolic: the painting is a Christian allegory, symbolizing the corruption of the Church, which was supposed to be the bride of Christ, but the groom has not appeared to claim his corrupt bride.

39. Bruegel: The Land of Cockaigne (1567, Munich)

There is no such doubt about The Land of Cockaigne, which is clearly a denunciation of gluttony, although not everybody can catch all the many references. The Dutch title is Het Luilekkerland, or “the lazy-luscious land,” which puts it perfectly. Huts are roofed with pies, eggs run around with spoons already in them, and the roast pig has a knife conveniently stuck into its crackling! The three men sleeping it off under the table come from different walks of life: a soldier, a farmhand, and a scholar; a fourth, perhaps a nobleman, seems to be struggling through some sort of fog to join them.

40. Bruegel: The Blind Leading the Blind (1568, Naples)

Finally, my favorite of them all, The Blind Leading the Blind. The subject is Biblical here too, from Matthew 15:14. The disciples are concerned that Jesus may be offending the Pharisees, and he replies, “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” Bruegel gives a literal illustration of the parable, translated to the real village of Sint-Anna-Pede. The church in the background, also real and still standing today, probably symbolizes the blindness of

— 7 — the Catholic Church. And the general bleakness of the subject, the abject condition of the blind men, and the absence of Bruegel’s usual humor, surely reflect the fact that the Spanish oppression has by now reached a dire stage.

These last two paintings surely qualify as moral rather than sacred art. They exist to make points, whether of a political nature, or simply concerned with social behavior. But that is not the only reason why they exist. Unlike some of the things we have seen this morning, they are not merely diagrams. In every sense of the word, they are works of art.

A brief musical interlude. There is nothing sacred about it, but the composer’s nationality and period are right. Orlando de Lassus (1532–94) was born in what is now Belgium, worked all over Europe, and rose to a fame as a composer of church music to equal Palestrina. This madrigal, Chi chi li chi or “cock-a- doodle-do,” is in Neapolitan dialect. Its subject is waking up, and its language that of the barnyard, so it seems appropriate to accompany it by the Laziness plate from Bruegel’s Seven Deadly Sins. The performers are an English-language group from Helsinki, and the titles are part of the show.

41. Bruegel: Laziness (from The Seven Deadly Sins, 1558) 42. Lassus: Chi chi li chi

E. Dutch Moralities

43. Maes: The Idle Servant (1655, London NG)

We move now to Holland, in the Seventeenth Century. This is another painting by the Dutch painter Nicolaes Maes: The Idle Servant. I am showing with the Old Woman Saying Grace that we saw earlier, so we can compare them. The big difference, I think, is that the housewife is communicating directly with the viewer, so the moral is clear. This could almost be another depiction of the Deadly Sin of Sloth, like Bruegel’s, except that the whole thing is compressed into a realistic domestic interior. Or is it realistic? Seems to me that the evidence is too clearly laid out. This is a diagram as much as a picture.

44. Steen: While the Housewife Sleeps, the Household Plays (c.1663, Vienna)

The separation of the Netherlands provinces from Flanders in 1581 and declaration of independence had two important results. One was the beginning of a period of great prosperity, leading to the Dutch Golden Age in the mid-17th century. The other was the establishment of a country whose prime religion was Calvinism. This greatly reduced the opportunities for typical religious painting of the type that Rubens, say, was practicing further south. But if anything it increased the openings for pictures that would tell a moral story. Here is such a morality by Jan Steen (1625–79): While the Housewife Sleeps, the Household Plays. Does it work to get its moral lesson across? I am inclined to think not. It has always seemed to me that these Dutch moralities, and Steen’s in particular, invite the viewer’s amusement

— 8 — much more than they act as a warning. In particular the sexual element in the second picture; there has always been a tendency in art to titillate with sex even as you are ostensibly warning against it.

45. Vermeer: Young Woman Asleep (1657, NY Metropolitan)

Here is another picture of a young woman asleep, this time by Johannes Vermeer (1632–75). An early source refers to this as a drunken woman sleeping, and so it seems; they are hard to make out, but there are a couple of wineglasses on the table, and a prominent wine jug. But is this a morality? It lacks the obvious pressing home of the moral. As the authority on Dutch painting Seymour Slive points out, “As an admonition to use alcoholic beverages moderately, the painting was probably a failure. The chance of looking as beautiful as Vermeer’s sleeping young woman is enough to drive a woman to drink.”

46. Vermeer: Young Woman Asleep, with X-ray 47. — original picture

Now look at what is revealed by X-ray. Originally, there was a man in the doorway, apparently just leaving the room, and a dog at his heels. But Vermeer painted them out. Why? What difference would they have made? They would have turned the painting from a tender moment into a story. And the details would have taken on their usual role as an erotic nudge: the womb-shaped pitcher, the phallic knife, and so on. However, not only has Vermeer omitted the other figures, he seems to have taken steps to at least smudge out the other evidence. This is simply a beautiful young woman asleep.

48. Vermeer: Woman Pouring Milk (1658, Amsterdam Rijksmuseum) 49. Gerrit Dou: Woman Pouring Water (c.1660, Louvre) 50. Vermeer: Woman Pouring Milk (repeat)

A similar transformation can be seen in this very famous picture of a serving girl pouring milk. It is often known as The Milkmaid, but that’s really a misnomer, as milkmaids work with cows. With Vermeer, the hidden message is not so much in what he does, but in what he does not do. Servants in Dutch art generally carry sexual overtones, perhaps because they were the most often available women to the men of a household. And milkmaids especially; the term melken had a sexual implication that we need not go into. Once you start looking at this picture by Gerrit Dou (1613–75), you see symbols everywhere. It is water not milk she is pouring, but the very action is suggestive. And look at all those hollow round objects, the flame in the lantern, and the prominent phallic carrots! Vermeer has the jug and of course the milk. The tiles along the floor are painted with Cupids, and the foot-warmer also has the connotation of hidden heat. But how little he makes of them! By removing the obvious associations, the picture becomes merely “a working maid in the act of careful cooking, not just a picture of an everyday scene, but one with ethical and social value. The humble woman is using common ingredients and otherwise useless stale bread to create a pleasurable product for the household. Her measured demeanor, modest dress and judiciousness in preparing her food conveys eloquently yet unobtrusively one of the strongest values of 17th-century Netherlands, domestic virtue.” [Essential Vermeer website].

51. Vermeer: Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (1655, Edinburgh) 52. — comparison with the Milkmaid picture

— 9 —

Vermeer, who married a Catholic woman, did paint a very few overtly religious pictures. Here is one of them, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary. For those of you who don't know, Jesus calls in at the sisters' house in Bethany just before his final entry into Jerusalem. Martha, who is working to get things shipshape in the kitchen, chides Mary for just sitting at Jesus's feet instead of helping. Jesus takes Mary's side, but I wonder if the Dutch Calvinists would have done? At any rate, it seems a perfect subject for its audience, setting the qualities of spiritual devotion and careful housekeeping in direct opposition.

53. Vermeer: Woman Holding a Balance (1663, Washington NGA)

And did you notice how the basket of bread is repeated exactly in the Milkmaid picture? That has given rise to interpretations making it a secular reworking of the sacred subject. It may sound far-fetched, but nothing is entirely off the table in Dutch art. Which leads me to one final painting, the Woman Holding a Pair of Scales. What is going on there? Is she about to sell one of those pearls, perhaps, or checking on the household assets? It is an entirely realistic picture, after all. But what is that picture in the background, a Last Judgement? And pearls are a well-known symbol of purity. So is it her own soul she is weighing? In short, is this a secular painting or a secular one? The greatness of Vermeer is that you cannot entirely know.

F. Bach’s Saint Matthew

54. Saenredam: Utrecht Church Interiors (1640s)

The website and the cover of your handout show the leftmost of these two pictures by Pieter Saenredam (1597–1665), who specialized in painting the interiors of great Gothic churches purged and whitewashed by the Calvinists. They make marvelous, almost abstract designs, and I suppose you could call them sacred art also, in their way. I chose this particular one, though, because of the prominence of the organ, testament to the fact that music suffered least of all the arts from the strictures of the Protestant Reformation. In fact the greatest of all religious composers, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685– 1750), grew up within the Lutheran tradition, and wrote his sacred music for churches where he himself was organist.

55. Bach and the Saint Matthew Passion 56. Rembrandt: Saint Matthew and the Angel (1661, Paris Louvre)

Bach did not invent the tradition of celebrating the Easter season with commemorations of the Passion story, but he developed it to its greatest height. His Saint Matthew Passion (1727) has several different elements: • The Bible story, as told by an Evangelist • Portions of the story acted out by other soloists • Crowd scenes similarly acted by the chorus • Arias for soloists commenting on the story from a personal perspective

— 10 —

• Similar numbers of commentary/contemplation by the chorus • Familiar hymns or chorales, possibly for congregational singing, used as prayers to punctuate the evolving drama.

Think of it as a very particular kind of theater. The Evangelist stands to one side of the stage, as it were, calling our attention to what is going on behind the proscenium arch. But the focus doesn't remain there. The soloists with their arias bring the story back into our contemporary world, responding with the emotions of ordinary human beings. And the familiar hymns (which we recognize even if we don't sing) involve us all in prayer. Nothing could be more appropriate to the Lutheran doctrine of a direct response to the Bible story, with faith being a personal matter for each individual.

And nothing could show this better than the final moments of the Passion. I will start where the Pharisees go to Pilate and complain that since Jesus boasted that he would rise again in three days, there had better be a guard on the tomb to prevent trickery. Then comes a beautiful section where each of the soloists bid Jesus farewell, and the chorus responds, “My Jesus, good night.” And the last chorus of all, an intense lullaby, simultaneously lamenting and consoling. Appropriately, this is performed by a Dutch group in a Dutch church.

57. Bach: Saint Matthew Passion, closing sections 58. Title slide 3 (Dürer: Entombment)

— 11 —